Norman Bowker's Suicide

1420 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The things carried by tim o'brian critical analysis

The Things They Carried As quoted from Plato, “Only the dead have seen the end of the war”. The battle between life and death does not simply end at the close of a war or during a resolution of peace. Rather, in the minds of those who survived the atrocities and terror, it lives on. Yet, as the strife continues to rage, the future of the affected becomes dependent on their decision to continue to fight with hope, or to find solace in defeat. This internal struggle is exemplified through Norman Bowker’s ending in the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. Despite the tragedy, his suicide serves as a representation of his moral reconciliation with himself, death, and the present. His resolution and resulting harmony depicts the contradictions …show more content…

This internal battle to transform the war mindset of a soldier to the norms of society is exemplified through Norman’s actions. First, this is displayed through the situation at the Drive Thru. Norman’s distance from society is shown when he attempts to order from Mama’s Burgers, but does it incorrectly, as the procedure has evolved. This evolution reflects the transformation of the world that occurred while Norman was in the war. Thus, when he returns he is stuck in the past, and not confident in how to proceed into the future. This disparity with time is again echoed with Norman’s compulsion of guessing the time. This symbolizes that he is mentally frozen in time, unable to adapt. In addition, while Norman drives through his town, he sees a change in the lake. “The lake had divided into two halves. One half still glistened, the other was caught in shadow.” (O’Brien, 150). This division among the lake represents the divide Norman saw among the world he lived in as he attempted to adhere to the norms of society. The glistening half of the lake represents the life outside of the war, shining and drawing attention. Meanwhile, the side caught in the shadows depicts the side of Norman that is still within the war, hidden in darkness, unpresentable. Additionally, this reflects the silence that Norman was forced into about his memories of the war. His thoughts had to be hidden in the darkness. This is reinforced as Norman imagines telling several people, such as his Dad, Sally Gustafson, and the voice over the intercom, his story about almost receiving the Silver Star award. However, he does not. “He could not talk about it and never would. The evening was smooth and warm.” (O’Brien, 153). In his suicide itself, this oath of silence is present. Norman left no note and no explanation. Overall, Norman’s death raises the issue of

Show More
Related

  • Norman Bowker In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    1018 Words  | 3 Pages

    According to Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, this fictional novel is a group of short stories that blended reality and fiction. Tim O’Brien’s storytelling evokes emotional responses from the audience, and it makes them empathise with the characters’ experience throughout the Vietnam War and after the war. In general, veterans who fought in the war change, and they experience disconnection with their friends and family after the war. Norman Bowker is a teenager who was drafted into the war, and he was one of the only good characters in this story. Through this character, we can see Norman Bowker change as the novel progresses and how war can affect people even when the war is over.

    Read More

  • Essay On Character Changes In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carry

    623 Words  | 2 Pages

    One of the main points in The Things They Carry, by Tim O’Brien, is that war changes people. This is evident in the behavior of Norman Bowker, Bob “Rat” Kiley, and the character Tim O’Brien. They each started out as kind young men but near the end had become very distraught. These men each shared many experiences but these experiences affected each one differently.

    Read More

  • The Things They Carried Rhetorical Analysis Essay

    793 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Things They Carried, an engaging novel of war, author Tim O’Brien shares the unique warfare experience of the Alpha Company, an assembly of American military men that set off to fight for their country in the gruesome Vietnam War. Within the novel, the author O’Brien uses the character Tim O’Brien to narrate and remark on his own experience as well as the experiences of his fellow soldiers in the Alpha Company. Throughout the story, O’Brien gives the reader a raw perspective of the Alpha Company’s military life in Vietnam. He sheds light on both the tangible and intangible things a soldier must bear as he trudges along the battlefield in hope for freedom from war and bloodshed. As the narrator, O’Brien displayed a broad imagination, retentive memory, and detailed descriptions of his past as well as present situations. 5. The author successfully uses rhetoric devices such as imagery, personification, and repetition of O’Brien to provoke deep thought and allow the reader to see and understand the burden of the war through the eyes of Tim O’Brien and his soldiers.

    Read More

  • Story-Truth And Truth In Tim O Brien's The Things They Carried

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    This form of writing appeals to the audience’s emotions by making the connection seem more personal, as if O’Brien is speaking directly to each reader. The constant changing of forms of writing within a single novel is unusual, and sometimes they appear to not make sense. O’Brien uses a variety of writing forms in order to make the novel a “true” war story, rather than a novel for purely entertainment purposes. In this chapter the audience is first told of O’Brien’s purpose within the novel: to feel the way he felt. The sometimes confusing and unexpected changes of forms of writing allows the readers to better relate to O’Brien’s own

    Read More

  • Coping Mechanisms Used for Survival in The Things They Carried

    920 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel, “The Things They Carried”, is about the experiences of Tim O’Brian and his fellow platoon members during their time fighting in the Vietnam War. They face much adversity that can only be encountered in the horrors of fighting a war. The men experience death of friends, civilians, enemies and at points loss of their rationale. In turn, the soldiers use a spectrum of methods to cope with the hardships of war, dark humor, daydreaming, and violent actions all allow an escape from the horrors of Vietnam that they experience most days.

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Complexity Of War In The Things They Carried

    822 Words  | 2 Pages

    Tim O 'Brien 's 1986 “The Things They Carried,” tells a story of how impactful war can be. It describes the struggle of overcoming grief and the struggle to deal with death; it shows the human side of war. The passage above provides an excellent example of the way O 'Brien uses first person narration to explain the complexity of war. In particular, the real meaning of “The Things They Carried” is revealed, because they show the actual burden the soldiers carried was not materialistic, but emotionally, “They carried all the emotional baggage of men who might die. Grief, terror, love,” (O’Brien 608).

    Read More

  • Coping with the Reality of Death Depicted in Tim O'Brien's Novel, The Things They Carried

    844 Words  | 2 Pages

    Death is one of life's most challenging obstacles. Tim O'Brien was exposed to more than his fair share of death. To manage the emotional stress, he developed methods of coping with the death in his life. O'Brien's novel, The Things They Carried, demonstrates his attempts to make death less real through psychotherapeutic tactics like telling stories about the dead as if they were living and conceiving the dead as items instead of people.

    Read More

  • Two Notable Stories Within The Things They Carried

    1288 Words  | 3 Pages

    He remembers the times before the war. When he used to drive around the same lake with his friends from high school. He recalls the girl he once dated, Sally Kramer, and the carefree fun they used to have. That was before the war, before he won seven medals, and before he almost won the Silver Star. Now Sally Kramer was Sally Gustafson, married with her own house set on that lake. He thought of what he would say to her if she were to listen to what he would like to say. He thought of how she would react to what was said, as if things were as they had once been before he had gone off to war. He thought of his best friend Max who had drowned in the lake before the war. Imagining what Max would have said if he was there to listen to Norman tell the tales he would like to tell. He would have told about how he almost won the Silver Star. Norman would have told this to his father too, if his father hadn't been so into baseball. There is so much he would have said...

    Read More

  • O'Brien's Things They Carried Essay: Truth, Fiction, and Human Emotion

    1260 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...O'Brien goes beyond the telling of war stories in The Things They Carried to say something larger about the art and purpose of story-telling. Contrasting truth and fiction, O'Brien shows that the truth cannot always communicate human emotion. O'Brien's personal guilt at seeing a man die from a grenade blast is real, and must be communicated as such in a story. Norman Bowker's guilt at seeing Kiowa sink into the muck leaves him with a sense of direct personal failure. By incorporating this sense of failure into fictional events, O'Brien is able to communicate the true human emotion behind the story, rather than just the facts. Above and beyond a simple set of war stories, The Things They Carried reduces fiction to the very heart of why stories are told the way they are.

    Read More

  • “What We Lost in the Great War”

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    Although Jake was spared his life in the great war, he lost another part of his life and future. Jack tries to compensate his lack of any real future with Brett or any other women with his passion for bullfighing and other frivalties. In John Steele Gordon’s article, “What We Lost in the Great War” Gordon laments the loss of hope and future the generation of the war felt. The characters of the novel, and especially Jake, exemplify the lack of direction felt after the war. Their aimless drinking, parties and participation in the fiesta is an example of the absence of focus in their life.

    Read More

  • The Emotional and Psychological Burdens in 'The Things They Carried'

    803 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Roman philosopher Seneca the Younger once said “Perjor est bello timor ipse belli”, which translates to: “the dread of war is worse than war itself”. With this quote, Seneca identifies that war has both its physical and mental tolls on its participants. The psychological and emotional scars of war do much more damage to a solider than the actual physical battles. Tim O’ Brien repeats this idea many years later in his novel “The Things They Carried”, by describing how emotional burdens outweigh the physical loads that those in war must endure. What keeps them alive is the hope that they may one day return home to their loved ones. Yet, the weight of these intangible “items” such as “grief, terror, love, longing” overshadow the physical load they must endure since they are not easily cast away.

    Read More

  • Death in The Things They Carried

    1046 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Things They Carried there are three instances in which the main character and author Tim O’Brien experiences first hand the tragedy of death. During his storytelling O’Brien describes the man he kills, next he describes the first death he witnesses in Vietnam and finally his first experience early in life with the death of Linda. O’Brien tells the reader how he has able to cope and learn with each experience of death. In the book, The Things They Carried O’Brien tells how he copes with death in his own way and how his understanding of death evolves throughout the novel.

    Read More

  • Similarities And Differences Between The Things They Carried And The Yellow Wallpaper

    1006 Words  | 3 Pages

    The narrator in “The Things They Carried” deals with the subjective conditions of war. Throughout the story, straining emotions often brought O’Brien’s teams emotions, especially after a death, causes a “crying jag” with a “heavy-duty hurt” (O’Brien 1185). The fury of emotion associated with death begins to erode the sharp minds of the soldiers and become mentally effective. After an event of large magnitude, it still began to take its toll on the protagonist as they often “carried all the emotional baggage of men who might dies” during the war (O’Brien 1187). The travesties that occurred with the brutality of war did not subside and began to affect those involved in a deeply emotional way. The multitude of disastrous happenings influenced the narrator to develop a psychological handicap to death by being “afraid of dying” although being “even more afraid to show it” (O’Brien 1187). The burden caused by the war creates fear inside the protagonist’s mind, yet if he were to display his sense of distress it would cause a deeper fear for those around him, thus making the thought of exposing the fear even more frightening. The emotional battle taken place in the psyche of the narrator is repressed directly by the war. The protagonist in “The Yellow Wallpaper” is also faced with the task of coping with mental

    Read More

  • Women and Their Role in The Things They Carried by Tim O'brien

    897 Words  | 2 Pages

    They were essential in showing the key parts in O’Brien’s life that lead to the turning points which lead to the creation of this novel and his ability to be at peace with what had happened in Vietnam. He finally accepted what had happened and embraced it instead of avoiding it. Works Cited Novel O'Brien, Tim.

    Read More

  • Betrayal In The Things They Carried

    600 Words  | 2 Pages

    We are all killers, through our mutual silence we try to avoid the blame and ignore the destruction we cause. In Tim O’ Brien’s The Things they Carried the reader is emerged in the setting of Vietnam through the Alpha Company, a platoon of soldiers including O’Brien himself. Throughout the novel Tim O’Brien is plagued by his experiences in Vietnam yet his portrayal of others reveals a sense of betrayal towards the entire world which causes the reader to rethink their own view of war.

    Read More

More about Norman Bowker's Suicide

Open Document